[-empyre-] Wired sustainability and Ambient Media

[John von Seggern]

On Apr 18, 2008, at 12:29 AM, John Hopkins wrote:
>>>
> The Internet as an infrastructure cannot (except theoretically) be  
> excised from the techno-social system that it is embedded within.

On the other hand, another way of looking at it would be that only  
the Internet and the broad-based social connections it engenders can  
possibly raise consciousness widely and quickly enough to bring about  
significant change in a meaningful time frame.

Frankly I think this is our only hope for survival in the medium- 
term. Certainly if we look back through human history there is little  
indication that earlier societies were remarkably unsuccessful at  
finding solutions to sustainability emergencies such as the one we  
now face, only an advance to a higher level of connectivity and  
'societal consciousness' can help us now in my opinion.

We need to make use of the technologies we have to build a better  
future.

What would you propose as an alternative?

Planet Earth has already far exceeded its natural carrying capacity  
were it not for our high usage of fossil fuels and other non- 
renewable energy sources for transportation, agriculture, fertilizer,  
industry, etc.

I completely agree that continuation of the status quo will lead to  
disaster, however going back to earlier technologies or ways of doing  
things is not an answer, that can only lead to starvation on a mass  
scale (although that may be inevitable in any case).


John von



> Energy consumption of that system rises, is rising.  Web 2.0 sites  
> brought online huge numbers of energy-consuming server farms which  
> never existed when users did not previously store social network  
> data, for example.


>
> Of course, in the process of the engineered evolution of any  
> particular device there will be optimization -- that is the goal of  
> engineering. If that wasn't the case, our system would have never  
> been marginally sustainable from the beginning.  Extracting stats  
> on theoretically isolated elements is not valid except for more  
> back-slapping "we've done it, we've found a way to have and eat our  
> cake" -- and it represents no real solution.  It is exactly this  
> localized isolation of elements which allows this mentality to  
> persist.  Just as with many previous industrial advances where a  
> resource was abundant, any negative affects of the use of that  
> resource was able to be overlooked by the end user who was somehow  
> isolated (usually geographically) from them.  That geographic  
> isolation is no longer possible when the effects are global.   
> Think, on a globe there are no isolated corners to sit in anymore.
>
> This is exactly the point that I am making -- that unless people  
> realize that radical shifts in our relationship with the deep and  
> broad techno-social infrastructure, we are not making real  
> reductions in the overall footprint, and it is the size of the  
> cumulative footprint that will spell the difference between  
> sustainability or the alternative which is only dimly making itself  
> known through the fog of naivety.  (and believe me, I don't place  
> myself above the fray, but energy consumption and the reliance on  
> the largely invisible functioning of that globe-spanning  
> infrastructure is a seriously addictive way to go)...
>
> cheers,
> JOhn
> -- 
> -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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John von Seggern

john.seggern at native-instruments.com

Native Instruments North America, Inc.
5631 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
USA
http://www.native-instruments.com


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